1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to fence construction and, more particularly, is concerned with a fence construction assembly and method of making the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fences made of wood, stone, brick, metal and other materials have been used for many years for a variety of reasons such as to indicate boundaries, to hinder an act of trespass by animals or people and to confine animals or people within an enclosure. Fences may also be used to manage sound, wind, light, sightlines and for purely aesthetic reasons. Since fences have multiple purposes, a variety of styles have evolved over the years. Wood fences in particular seem to have the widest variety of designs, including a woven-board style, a solid abutting picket board style, a staggered picket board style and a louvered style.
The woven-board style involves weaving the boards of the fence between the interior and exterior of rails or posts. The solid abutting picket board style involves placing each of the boards up against an adjacent one of the boards. The staggered picket board style involves alternating the boards between opposite sides of rails or posts without any widthwise overlap of the alternating boards in the standard configuration. The louvered style involves placement of the boards in parallel relation to one another and configured in an overlapping, shingled but laterally spaced apart fashion. Efforts have also been made to systematize construction of fences having the above designs.
Before selecting any one of these above designs or any other style for a fence, it is perhaps desirable to first consider the cost, the visual privacy provided and the management of air movement for comfort under varying weather conditions. The ideal fence would be one which yields an adequate compromise between visual privacy and management of air movement at the lowest possible cost. Problems appear to exist, however, with each of the above designs in terms of successfully reaching a satisfactory compromise of the above factors. The woven-board style generally provides an appropriate level of air flow and adequate visual privacy but does so at considerable cost as it generally requires the use of often prohibitively expensive long boards of high quality to withstand the stresses applied in weaving the boards in and out among the posts or rails. The solid abutting picket board style generally is one of the least expensive and provides adequate visual privacy but does so by permitting very little air flow between the boards and therefore does not permit the passage of refreshing breezes on calm days. The staggered picket board style generally is affordable but does not provide adequate visual privacy and permits too much air flow to pass and therefore does not adequately mollify vortices created on the leeward side of the fence during high-wind periods. The louvered style generally provides the appropriate level of air flow and adequate visual privacy but is generally expensive due to the difficulty of current methods of construction.
More particularly, the standard louvered style fence construction generally requires a means for capturing each end of the boards. One common means is to cut standard lumber into small pieces to place between the ends of the louver boards where they mount to fence support members. Another common means for doing this is by providing standard lumber for a fence support member having substantial thickness and cutting a groove in and along a side of the support member which has spaced portions each at a very slight acute angle to the fence vertical plane which will accept the ends of the louver boards and thus leave the louver boards as nearly planar to the fence itself as possible. This desired acute angle of each louver board adds to the complexity of the arrangement by virtue of the grooves running lengthwise of the boards necessarily being long and having narrow fragile boundary regions between them which are subject to breakage. The grooves in the lumber also may require a separate securing means for preventing the louver board from becoming displaced from the groove across its width dimension.
Representative examples of methods for constructing fences having one of the above designs or a like design are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,652,060 to Glover, U.S. Pat. No. 3,892,387 to Mann, U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,702 to Kinnaman, U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,703 to Bouye, U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,520 to Walters, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,948 to Lustvee, U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,767 to Bradshaw, U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,759 to Patrick, U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,760 to O'Sullivan and U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,005 to Zen.
Problems appear to exist, however, with each of the above-mentioned prior art methods of construction in that each appears to be a complicated method which requires the purchase of multiple individual specific components to complete and which permits little room for modifications to address variable needs.
Consequently, a need still exists for a method for constructing a fence which overcomes the aforementioned problems with the prior art methods without introducing any new problems in their place.